In Tokyo in the 90s, the city center has been suffering from a continuing depopulation. Also affected is Udagawa Junior High School where only six people are left. Their class leader, protector, and very good friend Masato died in an illegal skateboarding race.

Five months later, Eito Hachiya, nicknamed Eight or 8, enrolls in school and wants to find out what happened. He even just looks like Masato! But mysteries surround him: Why does he know all the other six? Why canít they remember him?

This manga was canceled after about 25% of volume 4 was completed. The epilogue consists of an alternative ending for it.

started out pretty goodwas expecting it to be darker and about revenge from beyond the gravewith rissen dogspiritsthen the MC turns into an idiot and its all about skatingthen it turns into an action story that works Kaneko is c00land then it sort of endswith a complete rewrite of the main characters background

the last part of the manga is kind of badart start to suffer ALOTand a mashing together of things and things happen for no reason

the first 3 volumes are really goodyou want to read moreand you like the charactersbut the ending and the oneshot are just bad

should have ended with MCs death in the hospital bed and the 2 other kids should never have talked to that doctor

More or less that, but let's start with my personal view on the manga. Eight is the first manga having a deeper message, the first to make me think about it a bit, that I read; by that it introduced me to the great world of seinen (and josei) manga is surely the main reason for me not quiting reading manga at all. You see, I gotta be grateful to it.

The story: Some misterious dude and, shortly after, a just as misterious dog show up in Shibuya, that's suffering from the negative effects of gentrification.

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

The dude (eito (you see how much I like the manga lol)) happens to join a school that's about to be closed the next year and only has 7 students left, soon after. His classmates are still saddened by one of their friends death, a friend, that looks just like eito. Eito knew that guy too and is gonna revenge him. Soon he finds out that said friend died at a skating and fistfighting tournament and was probably murdered. He beats up some local thugs maybe involved at the murder case and starts to learn skating too. Next his classmates get cornered by the local chinese gang, actually the biggest around, and do some one on one fighting. Eito comes to rescue them and literally runs into the gang's boss' knife, looses some blood, and is send to hospital. There he stays in coma and the doctor assigned to his case tells his friends about his past and how his is just a split from their deceased friends personality, in short them being one and the same person.

The art: Great. The backgrounds are very detailed and the characters all look unique. On a sidenote it's refreshingly different from modern shounen manga art as one can see how the author still (even if he developed it much) sticks to his old (80s...) drawing patterns, which were even more unique back then. The only point Atsushi's art backfires at is his middleschool characters looking as if they were like... 20.

Eight Counter (The alternative story):This is the really great thing about Eight,

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

as it doesn't repeat any of the mistakes having been done before. Shibuya's mayor, who's apparently Eito's dad without knowing so, strolls around and meets the students. He's needs some stress relief and decides to do a competition with them to decide the future of their school, that's about to be closed and torn down. The students have it end in a draw and finally trick him at the last game, putting an end to the "13 Night" at that. The oneshot finishes with the same words the main story starts with.

Rating:First I'd like to differenciate between 5 parts here, the start (chap 1-4 or so), the 2nd part being chap 5 to 20, the 3rd one 21 to 34 (vol 3), the 4th one 35 to the end and the final one the oneshot. Part 1: Really good start for an action manga, I'd rate give it an 8pt 2:

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

Momentum declines, you get to know the chars, there are links opened to future chaps and arcs -

6pt 3:

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

Nothing happens, just some lukewarm action: fail -

3pt 4:

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

You gotta say farewell and somehow at least I realized how much I liked the chars in the end (at least most), rather open ending with barely indirect questions from the author:

8.5

The oneshot:

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

Works either as part of the story or as a standalone story. Great oneshot, 9.5

Art: Rather unique, looks good, no unneccessary crap, realistic: 9.8 (the same categories work for Ikegami (the sanctuary/crying freeman dude too, and he's (much) better at them)